If you want to learn more about testing yourself for diuretic damage, concentrating toxic overload and kidney dysfunction, consider listening to the BIA workshop that I recently did here – BIA WORKSHOP
I was reading an article here – 12 worst prescription meds and I was shocked that diuretics were on the list. Here is there portion of article on Diuretics:
7. Diuretics Diuretics increase the kidney’s normal mechanisms of action, causing a flood of excess water to be excreted. They give rapid relief to people with excess fluid. Many cardiac patients rely on diuretics for this reason and might not be alive today without their help. However, the long term use of diuretics to manage high blood pressure dangerously depletes the body of vital minerals.
Most physicians readily prescribe medications to lower hypertension. However, these medications, particularly diuretics, may lower blood pressure and frequently cause numerous side effects such as that mentioned above. This is particularly true of hypertensives with diabetes which itself causes mineral wasting. Among the vital minerals lost is potassium which physicians often replace with supplements. But all other minerals, including magnesium (especially beneficial to the heart) are completely overlooked.
We believe that diuretics are overused, extremely dangerous and are the specific cause of thousands of deaths per year. In the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial (MRMIT) a large double-blind study was done in 1985. Men with high blood pressure were divided into two groups. One group received the standard drug therapy for blood pressure control, while the other received an aggressive treatment that involved the increased use of diuretics. In the diuretic group, the death rate increased, even though their blood pressure was lower than that of the other group. There was also a significant increase in the onset of cardiac arrhythmias. Both of these were likely due to the substantial mineral loss that occurs in your body with the aggressive use of diuretics. Diuretics cause your body to discharge vitally needed magnesium, calcium, potassium, sodium, chloride, zinc and iodine in the fluids that are excreted from your body. The loss of these minerals can lead to spasms in your coronary arteries, stroke, irregular heart rhythms and even heart attack.
Diuretics work by blocking the kidney’s ability to reabsorb these minerals, in particular sodium. Therefore, they not only cause excessive fluid loss, but also the loss of the other minerals mentioned above. Diuretics may be extremely useful for congestive heart failure, but the daily use of these drugs can be fatal.
The bottom line is that diuretics should not be part of anyone’s drug regimen on a long term basis. There are natural, safer and even health enhancing ways to decrease excessive body fluids and we’ll mention them now.
Warning! If you have congestive heart failure, you should work with your physician!
*** If you want to know more about their guidelines to helping, click the link above and go check it out, I have my own thoughts.****
So I am very appreciative of their effort in identifying the issues with diuretics, but I want to go back, and talk about WHY the fluid is there in the first place, and instead of looking at how to keep taking regular diuretics, I want to talk about getting you off of them. And then I also want to talk about a more serious side effect of diuretics…. which in the BIA workshop linked above, I get into talking about the very deleterious effect of reduced Magnesium in the body, which would also be a side effect of the diuretic according to the article above. So lets dig in.
Consider that fluid retention comes from some things that you are aware of… as a woman, you likely retain more fluid during your cycle. As a man, you retain more fluid when you drink beer, as a human, you retain more fluid when you eat a pizza… these are the things that we know. Estrogen metabolites, gluten in the beer and the pizza… the alcohol in the beer as well. All have a very likely impact of causing you to retain fluid.
The reason is because at some level, your body sees them as toxins. You work out really, really hard, and can hardly walk the next day… you notice you are “SWOL”… this is because you have broken down so much muscle, that creatine kinase and a series of other molecules that are part of cellular debris, are hanging out. You need to clear them out, and in the meantime you swell up. The reason, is that these molecules pull fluid, they are hyperosmotic, or they pull water to them. This causes you to retain water, and if the reason is more of a chronic reason, then you will pull water, chronically.
Lets set up a scenario. You have a slight inflammatory response to a certain food like gluten (not allergic, not intolerant, just inflammatory), or perhaps casein (Dairy). Because these are low level issues, you would likely not know there is an “issue”, and instead you would assume you are simply normal, and life is normal, and crappy food is normal, so who cares. BUT!!!! Then you show up to the doctor’s office, and you have elevated blood pressure, and your doc checks you out and says, “you have some fluid on your body, and you have increased peripheral resistance, which is causing high blood pressure…. so we’ll just get you on a diuretic and you’ll be good.”
Makes sense doesn’t it? Of course it does. But lets realize that these molecules pull fluid as a means of diluting them, dilution is the key here, it is what the body is doing, and it is what needs to happen, because these molecules can be damaging to your tissue, they are irritants, and irritation is a cancer causing agent, every time.
Which leads to this understanding, if we throw a diuretic on the body to kill the fluid retention, we are killing the dilution, thus creating concentration of these molecules, thus increasing their cancer causing potential. We should never dilute toxins for duration. Diuretics are bad, because they lead us to a more toxic and risky environment, thus we need to CHANGE the input that is causing us to chronically retain fluid. It IS the answer.
Want to know more? Lets figure out what makes you toxic and fix you. info@healthsprout.com
Be well and Be blessed! – Dr. E